Crimson rivers
by GildetCage
Summary: Meanwhile, Abraham had begun to negotiate. He could have told him that this would be to no avail. He knew that kind of people well enough to be sure that they wouldn't even try to mull over any of Abraham's offers. Poor guy could have talked to a shark instead, might as well would have had the same effect.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first try at a "Walking Dead"- Fanfiction and I truly hope it sparks some interest. The story's going to be a crossover and I originally wanted to post it in the right category. However, I'm a secretive kind of author and therefore didn't want to anncounce what other fandom I had in mind while writing the first eight pages. If this is not to your liking... Well, I won't force any of you to read what I wrote. Just feel free to either go ahead, or to stop ;)

Chapter 1

"Your property now belongs to Negan!"*

The man's words were still echoing in his head as he stood there rooted to the spot. He balled his hands into fists. They were only three and it took no wise man to tell him that their opponents were too many and well-armed to stand a chance against them. Frantically he tried to find a way out of this situation only to come to the same conclusion as before: Fighting back would've made no sense at all even though every fibre of his body told him to do so. What a crappy day in an even crappier world. Was it this Negan fella who made the two survivors in the woods draw up drastic measures concluding in taking away his crossbow and his goddamn bike? Was it out of fear of this guy? By now he was gritting his teeth, too infuriated to come up with a clever retort, one that wouldn't have had them dragged deeper into already hot water. Meanwhile, Abraham had begun to negotiate. He could have told him that this would be to no avail. He knew that kind of people well enough to be sure that they wouldn't even _try_ to mull over any of Abraham's offers. Poor guy could have talked to a shark instead, might as well would have had the same effect. Right now, he would have loved nothing better than to beat that fucking arrogant grin out of the fella's face.

That conceited prick knew all too well that they had no options left, except for those he'd already voiced. "You could have the truck!" Abraham's efforts to persuade the shithead otherwise only resulted in his emitting a huff. As said before: Pointless. "Why should Negan consider himself satisfied with your truck when he can have it all?" The prick downright sneered at them. "Jus' do what I told ya and we spare your lives. Now, that's generous, isn't it?" One of the other assholes, lazily sitting on his bike, burst out laughing. Generous… Without their weapons they could consider themselves as pretty much dead already. The woods were full of walkers and in the streets they'd be as easy targets as there. If he had been an optimist as well as a faithful man he'd have prayed to god for a fucking miracle, but he wasn't. Instead, he just hoped that neither Sasha, nor Abraham were about to do something incredibly stupid. He stared at a point above the self-declared leader's head and blinked, not entirely sure if there really had been someone darting across the street or if he'd gone mental in the end.

The shape, cowering beside his companion, pointed with its outstretched index finger at the street in which a gang of armed bikers pulled over a truck, forcing its occupants out of their vehicle. For a moment there was nothing but silence. Then, the first shape turned towards its companion. "You've seen that?" "Aye, hard to miss… Eight red, three grey. Would say: Grey's in trouble!" "Yeah and red should better button down the hatches!" "You're going in." It wasn't a question. "Fine, what about the division?" "On either sides!" "At least one of us will have to cross the goddamn street then!" "Sure, but who would we be if we couldn't rely on stealth?" Grinning, the shape turned its attention to the back of the space they were occupying, emitting a faint bird-call. Two other silhouettes emerged from the shadows of the undergrowth. "There's work to do, my dear loved ones! Got to help three civilians cheating the gallows!"

 _Washington, D.C., 3 months prior to the apocalypse_

"I have to go!" "You always go at the most inconvenient times… It's three in the mornin' for fucks sake! What could possibly be that bloody important that you can't stay?" "Sorry, emergency!" "It's what it ALWAYS is! We only meet each other like… almost never and when we do I can count the times on my fucking fingers where you, at some point, didn't have to leave soon after! I was really looking forward to seeing you again, Lyn, but you sure as hell had to ruin it, eh? Sometimes I get the feeling you're only trying to mend things between us because you don't have the guts to tell me that you grew tired of your _best friend_!" "Susan, please, stop… You know it's not like this. It's not t _rue_! I'll make it up to you later, gonna give you a call, talk things over, but I really do have to go now, k?" "Sure, do what you always do and piss off, Lyn. Just piss off!" It were in times like this when Lyn was suddenly painfully aware of how non-standard her life was. The dangerous flash in Susan's eyes had made it quite clear that the phone call she really was about to give later that day would be no cakewalk. It was all too likely that she wouldn't have a best friend anymore after that. If she hadn't lost her already in that very moment…

Sighing she snatched up her belongings and left the apartment. Interpersonal relationships were a bloody complicated thing when you led a life like hers. However, it never once occurred to her that she should and could give it up, doing what so many other people around her did: Carving out an ordinary existence. Sure, she didn't know it any better. Maybe… if she had grown up under different circumstances… No she wasn't going to follow that train of thoughts! Even if it was hard at times, even if it meant that she would lose people because of it, people she could never tell what she was actually doing all the time, she wouldn't have traded any part of it just to get what Susan considered a good and normal life. Lyn craned her neck. Either she would be able to mend things again, or she had to take another loss. Wasn't like she wasn't used to it… Whether through death, or the state one could best describe as growing apart. She caught her keys in the depths of her worn with use handbag, pushing every thought about Susan aside and got into her car. Starting the engine she waited until the electronic devices of the car came to life. Driving onto the streets she used the hands-free kit. "I'm on my way. Will take me twenty minutes though!" "Could you make it in ten?" "That urgent?" "I'd say so, yes. See you later!" The disembodied voice fell silent and Lyn grimaced. While turning on the radio she hoped that there had been no complications of the circumstances. The first tunes of the song that now penetrated her ears made her frown instantly. "You got to be fucking kidding me, don't you?" Neither radio nor song bothered to respond. Instead, the latter simply went on.

 _What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when_

 _I tried so hard_

 _and got so far_

 _but in the end_

 _it doesn't even matter**_

 _Annotations: * Sentence taken from: The Walking Dead, season 6, Episode 8._

 _** Songlyrics taken from: In the end by Linkin Park, released in 2000._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sometimes, out in the woods, Lyn got that feeling that nothing had really changed. That she'd return and find everything was as it had been before the world turned upside down. It felt just like being on a mission again, searching endless woods for scattered artefacts and buildings of a long lost time. And, then some _Returned_ would appear, reminding her that she was still caught up in this living hell. That there was no going back… The world she once knew had changed and it would never be the same. They weren't too far away from Washington now. Once arrived they would have to check if the headquarters was still in use, or, to be more precise, if any of its occupants were still alive. Then, they would have to find a solution, a cure of some kind for that misery the world had come to. She still hoped that what she was about to do would do it.

However, she'd seen it in the other's eyes: She was the last person who still believed that there was a way out of it. Even Mo seemed to have decided that there was nothing left to do. He'd told her yesterday that it would be too dangerous. Would take too much time. She insisted on trying though. "What for? You coming back after seemingly hundreds of years, being successful on that mission of yours only to find out there are a only a dozen of human beings left in the whole wide world? That's lunacy, utter lunacy and you know that! We better be trying to create a place where we and others might find a home. As secure as it can be in a world like this!" Sure, his doubts had her deliberate what she was about to do. If she was going to put that plan of hers into action she would have to take into account a couple of more years of wandering about. This time alone, for Mo wouldn't allow her to gamble with the lives of her companions for something that was, in his opinion, already destined to fail. Nonetheless, Lyn was determined to give it a try.

 _Marietta, North Georgia, 8 years prior to the apocalypse_

James Morris was an utter scumbag. That her enemies worked together with him was due to the circumstance that he controlled whole neighbourhoods in the city. If they controlled him they also could begin to take over these parts. Morris, who said of himself that he was a sly dog who nobody could deceive, now had been the one her enemies had tricked into being a servant of them. Which was exactly what he had stated would _never_ happen to him. Morris had to go. As soon as the man disappeared his drug market would vanish and with the man himself gone her enemies would lose a great deal of their control. It would be easier to get rid of the true bosses when they were still in a state of shock, making mistakes out of panic. For months Lyn had been following every single step the fat ruffian took, had mixed with his men, even talked to him.

Morris might have been a talkative man, but he made sure you never got any important details out of him. In fact, he was the most secretive chatterbox she ever met. Still, he didn't know she was an expert, as well as he didn't know she had been following him that particular evening in May to one of his warehouses. Buildings so heavily guarded you could get the impression the man was harbouring the Queen's crown jewels in them. Nonetheless, she easily got access. It was part of her life to get into places she normally wasn't allowed to even know of their existence. She actually should have gone for Morris the instant she set her eyes upon him in that warehouse of his. Unfortunately, two of his man shoved someone inside whom she didn't want to be part of the mission at all: A civilian. The bloke looked like they'd beaten the shit out of him and they weren't finished yet. With brute force they dragged the man, who was surprisingly still struggling against the obvious violence instead of just passing out, to a chair in the middle of the hall. Their hostage tried to speak, or which was more likely, cursing them. The gag in his mouth though hindering him from being heard clearly.

Without uttering a single word Morris watched as his two minions trussed him up in the chair. Then, he clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Boy… Your brother should never have gotten behind my back. Did he really believe he could mess with me? How lucky the prick is being in prison right now. How unfortunate for you though. I'm already considering a way to send him his dear brother back. In parts, of course. One at a time… I wonder what he'd say if he received one of your eyes first? Would he instantly know to whom it did belong?" Lyn glanced at her wristwatch realising that the alarm would go off in a few seconds. She knew by experience that Morris always disliked it when someone or something chose to interrupt him during _work_. Instead of checking himself that everything was in order he'd send his sycophants. As for the latter: It would be Jack's and David's task to get rid of them. Time to _bring the guns into position_.

"Shall we start? What do you think shall I do first with you, my dear…?" The hostage's name remained unknown for in this very moment the alarm went off. As predicted Morris yelled at his inferiors to take care of the matter. The two of them had just left the hall when Lyn decided to leave her hideout above the hostage's and Morris' heads. She leapt forward, landing like a cat between the two remaining men. "Party's over, Morris!" She heard him gasp while her bullet went silently through his chest. Silencers really were a blessing! Morris, by now sinking on his knees, glanced up in an accusatory manner. "You?" The wretched man must have recognized her voice for her face was still hidden underneath her hood.

"I think you made the mistake to lay your trust in a few too many people, James. I'm sorry it has to end this way, but getting involved with the wrong people while exuding nothing short of terror always has consequences!" "You… fuckin'…bi-…" Morris wasn't able anymore to utter the insult, his grey eyes already turning into lifeless orbs. For a few seconds his bulky body stayed in a kneeling position before it keeled over, impacting with a dull noise on the floor. "Rest in peace, asshole!" Lyn turned her attention to the hostage whose eyes had gone wide; the confusion written all over his face. She untied him swiftly, got rid of the gag and pointed her index finger at a door on the left of the hall. "If you take that one your way back to where you came from will be a lot easier. I can't say for sure whether my men have already been able to kill most of Morris' sycophants or not and would like to prevent you from getting caught up in the battle… So this door over there is your one way ticket to freedom!" He didn't thank her for saving his life, no. Instead, he just stared at her with utter distrust in his eyes. Lyn lost her patience. "GO ON NOW! As I've said: Party's over. What the hell are you waiting for, man?" Only then he stirred, darted across the hall, reached the door and… froze. His mumbled _Thanks_ was so faint she almost missed hearing it. The next moment he was gone and the door snapped shut. "What a delirium of joy!"

"Morris' dead!" "Was about bloody time. Each time one thought one could finally press charges he found a loophole or something else to prevent the arrest!" "Wouldn't be so happy about it, Peter. Rumour has it someone is about to take over Morris _empire_ and then it'll be the same all over again…" The two went out of earshot. Damn it… The conversation had been quite interesting and he would have been happy to hear more details. Morris was dead? Good, after all the man had a score to settle with him. To be honest a rather big one… God, it had been the first time he'd cheered at being arrested and waking up in a filthy cell! His imprisonment had saved him from Morris and his minions and on top of that given him the chance to think about a way of how he could sort the matter out once he had to leave the prison.

Well, it wasn't necessary any more to rack his brains. His problems had dissolved into thin air… Mary had visited him yesterday. The little one seemed to be the kind of person who never gave up on somebody even if that somebody was nothing short of a fuckin' wreck. It was almost amusing to listen to her ramblings of what he could do with his life, how he could gain control of it. Mary and her daydreams… One day she'd wake up and notice that none of them could come true. Especially not when it came to him. He was scum and so was his little brother. Scum was never meant to experience a golden future… Scum was never meant to eat from silver platters.

 _Marietta, North Georgia, 8 years prior to the apocalypse_

"What? Ain't ya got a single word o' greeting for yer dear brother?" The man, sitting comfortably in the old armchair, didn't respond. His older brother, just returned from prison, grunted moodily. "Ya not happy to have yer brother back, _Sweetheart_?" He knew, _this_ nickname wouldn't help solving the tension between the two of them at all, but since he'd never learned to approach an issue in a more sensitive way he did what he had always been good at: Aggravating the problem. Lo and behold, he finally got a reaction. His brother's fingers began to dig into the torn open covering of the armchair, tearing out bits of the stuffing. The older man shrugged, turned around, strode to the fridge and opened the door. "Not a single, measly beer left to mark the occasion?" "Because of _you_ I almost kicked the bucket! He slammed the door shut and turned his attention towards his brother who kept staring at the same spot he'd been staring at when he had entered the flat. A goddamn water stain opposite his seat. "Don' make a fuss, Sweetheart. Ya look pretty alive ta me, couldn't have been that big o' a catastrophe!"

His words didn't reflect what he was thinking. It wouldn't have been an impossibility for Morris to run down his little brother in order to take revenge on him, so he had already reckoned something like this happened. Yes, he felt guilty, but he wasn't able to admit it. The boy had to learn that there was nothing good in this world, including the absence of people who showed their compassion, people who acknowledged their faults, and people who promised that everything would soon be fine. Life wasn't easy and he would make sure, once and for all, to plant this matter of fact in his baby brother's mind. There wasn't a single person in the whole goddamn wide world reaching out to someone as well as there was no one on that shit hole called planet earth, who was unselfish enough to choose another person over himself. One always came out on the short end. Regardless of the situation. "Could've been one if it hadn't been for that woman!" The older man tilted his head. "Woman?" "Shot Morris. Without her I wouldn't be here now!" "Well, I'll be damned! It needs a damn pussy to save ya sorry ass? Pathetic, Sweetheart!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"And he said: Sorry mate, can't help you! Honestly, I loathe home-improvement market's staff. To find one is an almost hopeless endeavor in itself. Holy shit, if it were a video game it would be the last level: Find the staff and duck the other customers who got interrogation marks as heads!"

Lyn noticed at that moment that drinking and laughing at the same time wasn't a good combination at all. Coughing violently she placed her glass on the bar of the pub where they had decided to meet for the evening."Good lord, Lyn, you have to drink the beer and not spill i- Ouch!" Her seatmate grimaced, rubbing his left side where Lyn had punched him.

"That was mean!"

"You said you liked my being mean!"

"Did I? Must have been drunk… Speaking of being drunk, it's nice you came here with me. After the rest being a bunch of traitors, I nearly gave up hope…"

"It was fine with me, Mike. From time to time I do need some kinds of leisure. It's not like it grows on trees for us, isn't it?"

Mike nodded his head in agreement.

"Even so, I wouldn't want it any other way," he said raising his glass.

"To us and the others who are bloody party poopers!"

Lyn touched glasses, took a sip and inwardly admitted that Mike was correct. She could be offered years of leisure she knew she wouldn't go for it.

"Shall we drink up? Wanted to visit another place!"

"Which one? Please, don't let it be one of those where they tend to play country-music in an endless loop. Jack took me to one of them once, it was horrible to say the least!"

Mike put her off reassuringly with a wave of his hands. "Don't fret… They don't play country songs in there. However, part of the clientele sometimes…"

"Yeah?", Lyn probed him for Mike had decided to leave the sentence unfinished. Instead, he was now performing a gesture that obviously, but unfortunately without success, had been meant to tell her what was wrong with said clientele.

"Erm… Some people there are cheese dicks seeking nothing but trouble, hanging around dead drunk and molesting everyone who dares to violate their personal space!"

"Fantastic! Just the sort of pub I love to visit!", Lyn retorted with feigned enthusiasm.

"Really now, what could you probably want there, Mike?"

"The best Whiskey in town, that's what I want, honey!"

It truly was a dinky joint and not a place she would have visited a second time. Mike got a nerve dragging her in! A third of the guests already seemed to wait for the first to provoke a quarrel so they could happily join the brawl. While waiting for Mike to return with their drinks she once again let her gaze wander over the present crowd. In the rearmost corner sat a broad-shouldered bloke who carved cracks into the already tatty surface of his table. A stone's throw away a truly baked looking woman and at the bar a man who paid no attention to his seatmate although the latter was constantly going on and on to him. Right beside the talkative one stood a girl clad in a skirt and a top that both left nothing for imagination. Since Mike and Lyn had entered the bar the girl had been flirting heavily with the chatty one. However, her focus now lay on his disinterested seatmate. She strode over and wrapped her arms around his chest.

The man stiffened visibly, roughly disentangled himself from the embrace and snapped: "Don't ya get it? Don't touch me! Get on my brother's nerves for fucks sake, but not on mine!" His seatmate, apparently said brother, cackled. Lyn missed hearing his response for Mike chose that moment to reappear, placing two glasses on their table. "Ta-dah!", he exclaimed happily, flopping himself in the chair beside hers. They drank silently for a while, until Lyn asked the question she'd been holding back since they had entered the place. "How long are you going to stay?"

"Only for a second drink, princess! For crying out loud, you're used to this so why are you making a fuss?" Lyn glared at him in a way that made him sheer off from her. "If I unfortunately, have to spy on somebody who likes to visit a place like this, then it's just because it's a part of my work which means I can't choose whether I want to enter said place or not. If I'm not at work I do not have an interest in getting myself acquainted with this! And now, excuse me, I really need some fresh air!" She stood from her chair, moved towards the entrance and cursed as one of the not so sober guests stumbled into her way, clinging to her so he wouldn't lose his balance. It was the bloke whose female companion had tried to enchant his brother. "Hey lil' doll, got any plans for t'day?" he slurred. "Sure, but not one of those involves you!" Freeing herself and earning a furious "Stupid cunt!" she left the bar. Not knowing that the drunk one's brother had winced the minute he'd heard her voice.

* * *

"Now come on! Don't stand there like dummies! Move your sorry asses and hand over your weapons and the truck!" Still, nobody moved. Daryl was about to raise his head and open his mouth to retort when suddenly something began to clatter loudly. "What the…?" The leader of the gang turned around and now Daryl too, saw the cause of the sound. Two of their eight opponents lay on the ground. The one right under his bike, the other next to his vehicle. Between the two, with raised hands, stood a cloaked figure whose face was hidden underneath a hood. A cold shiver ran down Daryl's back. "Oops… Didn't want to do that!" The cloaked figure, judging by the sound of his voice a man, tilted his head and continued speaking mockingly. "What a bummer!" The sudden appearance of the stranger and the fact that two of their own men were probably dead had horrified the group so much that they still were not able to understand what had happened and therefore couldn't act accordingly. Their leader though already began to recover.

"What the hell are you waiting for? Keep an eye on the three of them and gun down the fucker he-" He broke off, wheeled around, his eyes set on the ground beneath his feet where an oval-shaped object just had landed which fuse already… Daryl barely had the time to drag Sasha and Abraham away in order to take cover as the thing exploded and began to cover everything in a dense fog. Only seconds later he heard the screams. The presumptuous gits, who had been at an advantage only moments before, were now begging for their lives. Shots rang out, panic-stricken voices echoed through the fog. Meanwhile, Sasha had rounded the truck and seated herself behind the steering wheel, obviously in an attempt to start their flight. Daryl followed suit, getting in from the other side. Only Abraham stood rooted to the spot. "Damn, what are you waiting for? Get in the car!", Sasha hissed through the open window. "Let's take that chance and get out of here!"

Abraham didn't move. Only now Daryl noticed the absence of screams. The fog had begun to vanish, revealing the lifeless bodies of their former opponents. Four cloaked strangers stood among the chaos of upend bikes and corpses. "If you give us the time to get rid of that mess you are free to drive on. Otherwise, you could try to drive over that patch of grass there, but I fear your car's a bit too big for this!" "You are willing to let us go?" Abraham's confused voice rang through the truck's open window. One of the strangers took a step forward and removed his hood, revealing the weather-beaten, scarred face of a man with shoulder length black hair and streaks of gray in it. He made a wry face. "Good boy there's nothing of value among your possessions. For us your weapons are useless and your truck only has room for no more than three occupants. Anyway: Even if some of the stuff you own might be of value for us we wouldn't take it!" "Why?" Because we unlike those sewer rats here, still have some sense of humanity. Otherwise, we would have just gawked at the spectacle a moment ago instead of intervening!"

* * *

 _North Georgia, 6 years prior to the apocalypse_

Tracy was the kind of woman one could best describe as naive. After her parents had died, the then eighteen year old had moved from Alabama to Georgia. Her impoverished background and the associated bad experience had done nothing to demolish her dreams of becoming a famous singer. After all these years of living from hand to mouth, she still thought of making it from rags to riches. She sure had a nice voice, but it was nothing too special, nothing that got her discovered. Especially not in a place like the town she'd decided to stay in. Over the years of singing in rather unfrequented bars she got herself involved with the wrong people and started to take drugs. Besides working part-time for ridiculous salaries she still sang at the same places. A year and a half ago she'd met his brother and as always, when it came to his brother, things had started to get worse. He'd knocked her up and Daryl had spent months to convince him that he had to take over responsibility for what he'd done to the girl. His older brother had come to terms with the situation ever so slowly. Nevertheless, Daryl made sure to look after Tracy and the kid from time to time. Despite all her flaws she was a kind woman. One that Merle didn't deserve and yet his brother still had her love.

"You think he'll be here in an hour?" "Hope so!", he grunted, watching as the baby, his brother's son, emitted little sounds of joy while Tracy was holding him. Tracy's flat strongly reminded him of the place he'd grown up in. The same worn furniture, the same depressing atmosphere. There was only one difference: No father to beat his own flesh and blood. Merle was anything but a man who used violence against his offspring. However, the thought that he might become like his father had been the sole reason why Merle initially refused to take over responsibility. The fear that he at some point might get enraged enough to hurt his child had driven the man almost crazy. Daryl could understand him though, if it had been him impregnating Tracy he probably would have needed someone to talk sense into him too. "So… Will you still be around if he makes true what he's promised? That he'll be here with me, looking after Charles?" Daryl knew the underlying meaning of her words. Can I still count on you? I still need your help. "Dunno!", he admitted. Truth was, he'd been dreaming of just leaving this place. The place where he'd spent his childhood and most of his adolescence. Over the last five months Daryl had saved enough money to make this particular dream come true, but then again: How could he leave when he didn't really trust his brother to avoid making mistakes? Merle had always been prone to getting himself into trouble. Not that Daryl was a saint in comparison. Hell, no, but he tried to avoid becoming a second version of his brother. Merle had never tried to hold himself back. Regardless of the situation.

"Think I'll stay n' make sure my brother doesn't act like the shithead he is!" Tracy beamed at him, confirming his prior thought that she had inwardly hoped to rely on him for some more time. The phone rang and Tracy placed the baby in his arms before he could have had the time to voice his denial. "Hold him for a moment, will you?" She headed off, took the phone and retreated to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Daryl awkwardly tried to handle the kid's fidgeting. He still wasn't used to holding a baby in his arms. Charles began to cry and Daryl felt the blood surging to his face. "Will ya stop cryin'? S' not like I'll eat ya!" Hell, things like this was supposed to be Merle's fucking job and not his. He wasn't good at playing the goddamn foster mother. Trying to rock the kid in his arms to, preferably, sleep he once again had no idea why people always said children either looked like their mothers or fathers. Charles didn't resemble his parents. To Daryl he just looked like any other baby, except for now because the kid had begun to take after a bloody shriveled tomato… with jet black hair, watering eyes and a gaping hole. The sound of the bathroom door opening startled both the baby and his uncle. He knew hell had broken loose as soon as Daryl laid his eyes on Tracy. That woman had never before looked more defeated than in this moment. "That was Dean… Merle's been arrested again", she croaked, bursting into tears.

* * *

He did visit his brother in jail, but he couldn't have cared less about speaking to him. He was done talking for all the words that he could have uttered had already been said in numerous other occasions. He knew how Merle would react if he voiced his opinion. His brother would try to fool himself, sputtering about how it wasn't his fault, how the universe just liked to give him hell and Daryl couldn't stand it anymore. So, he just sat there, studying his brother's face, and remaining silent until the visiting hour was up. Now he was the one being a father to the kid, the one to carry the can for his no good brother. That wasn't how he wanted it, but then again why bother thinking about how it could have been when there was no sense in doing so?

He got better at being a father. Tracy was unable to cope with the kid, drinking herself stupid at home exactly like his late mother. He'd tried to talk sense into her, but just as well he could have talked to a fucking brick wall. His world began to solely revolve around the kid. There was nothing he wouldn't have done for Charles. Maybe he wanted to give him the life he himself never experienced. Maybe he tried to convince himself that he indeed was a better man than the bastard who'd fathered him.

The day before Halloween two years later Merle left the prison, Tracy and Charles died in a car accident and Marilyn Stewart killed her husband.


	4. Chapter 4

**I hope you all had a merry Christmas and a good time celebrating the new year ;) Here's chapter 4 for those of you who still want to read this fanfic.**

 _Syria, Damascus, 1980_

His target had done a pretty good job at making him chase it around the goddamn planet. His mission started almost a year ago in Washington. Back then nothing had foreshadowed that he would end up here, in Damascus, still trying to track down that wretched man whose life he would have to take. It had to be done, his target was of too much value to his enemies. With this man gone things would certainly start to look better for him and his fellow brethren. For those reasons it was important that he finally got hold of him, he couldn't waste any more time! He'd met his contact man in Damascus earlier that day. The latter, a guy in his thirties, had suggested that the Suq al-Hamidiya might be the best place to start observations.

"There's a man, people call him al' Alīm, who could help you point out the right people to get pieces of information about the whereabouts of your target!" Now he stood inside Damascus' most famous bazaar, letting his gaze wander over the vendors present and their goods in order to search for al Alīm. The atmosphere was gloomy and he couldn't blame the people here for their strained faces. In the short time since he had arrived and got an idea of the situation, most Syrian cities had been the scene of strikes and brutal battles with security forces. It seemed that the conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the government run by the Ba'ath Party had reached a new dimension. A fact that did bother him greatly for he couldn't say for sure whether his target might be taking advantage of the situation in one way or another. Sighing he concentrated on the task at hand, inwardly hoping that he would be able to finish the wretched man off before he seized any chances.

Finding people was something he was used to doing and he was better at it than the majority of world's population. He remembered thinking his abilities were something abnormal. As a child, it had disturbed him when he came to the conclusion that other people just couldn't observe things the way he did. They saw the world in a completely different light and it freaked him out. Shy of his fifteenth birthday he hadn't told a single soul about it, truly believing that no one would understand him. He especially hadn't confided in his family. Neither his older half-brother, nor his father or his stepmother were trustworthy enough. To be honest, it wouldn't have come as a surprise if they had sent him to an asylum the moment he dared to speak of it. His father was a good man, but everything that was even remotely unnatural managed to creep him out. His older half-brother, Will, hated him to the core. The latter couldn't accept the fact that he always bested him at hunting. Every time Will had lost his temper because of it, he'd had to pay for it. His stepmother only got eyes for her own son, Jess.

To cut a long story short: Back then he'd had no one to turn to. If it hadn't been for that strange woman, Ellen, he'd met one afternoon in the woods he would have never gotten to know that there were people out there with the same abilities as his. She had appeared out of thin air, telling him that she had spent quite some time watching his every step. She said she knew what was bothering him and even though he was scared of the woman he found himself listening to her. Ellen didn't reveal everything she knew on that day, but offered him to meet her again, clearly with the intention of telling him more. It was the start of a friendship and the beginning of a new life. She gave him a choice and enough time to mull it over. He didn't need it… By then he'd already made up his mind. He lied to his family about the real reason for his leaving them. They wouldn't have understood at all if he'd told them the truth. He still remembered Will's face the moment he announced he would move out of town in order to take that job a storekeeper had offered him. His half-brother had been happy about him going away, cheering while he packed his belongings into a backpack. _"Hope ya stay there an' don' ever think 'bout comin' back, freak. We don' need ya here, Tom…"_ And Tom didn't. A year after he left home his father died and thus Tom cut the remaining ties to his family.

The man was sitting inside a cafe with his eyes closed and a cup of tea in front of him. Al' Alīm looked like he was asleep, but he knew better. The man was paying close attention to the surrounding chatter. Apparently his nickname did live up to the expectations that came with it. After all you didn't become all-knowing if you weren't able to focus on your surroundings. He didn't dare to approach him. At least six of the other customers signaled trouble to him, so he just waited until Al' Alīm decided to leave the place. Using the masses as his mask, he looked like every other visitor of the bazaar. Getting lost in the shuffle was an absolute necessity when it came to observations. To the masses you had to be none-existent, had to lead a life in the shadows. A person with no name, no face to remember… Tom Dixon was nothing more than a ghost.

* * *

"I used to play with my dolls before the rotten came!"

Lyn smiled sadly, tucking away a stray strand of hair behind the girl's ear. She was one of the five people that had managed to survive the journey. There had been more, of course. Some of them got sick, some got mental, others began to pose a threat to the group and a few had the bad luck to get themselves bitten. Lyn and the rest of her companions tried to make sure that these five didn't have to face the same end, but you just couldn't predict the future. If there was one thing the people around her had had to learn the hard way, then it was the fact that death was a certainty. For everyone. Some might die the next day, others after years, but no one could escape death. Neither she nor her companions did fear it though as much as the others. They were used to knowing that their lives could be over all too soon. This knowledge had always been part of their job, even before the dead decided to slop around instead of just resting in peace. After all they had been involved in a war almost as old as time and war always took its toll.

"I had millions of them, Lyn, and I was sad when I had to leave them at home, but I'm not sad anymore 'cause what should I do with them now? I can't eat, or drink them and I can't kill the rotten with them. They are useless. Isn't it funny how the things we used to see as our most precious belongings now are nothing more than worthless trash?" Lyn was about to respond to the girl in front of her, but was hindered from doing so when Mo and the others appeared."Took you quite some time to come back!", she stated, standing up from the spot on the ground where she had made herself comfortable. "Did something happen? Did you run into trouble?" She quickly glanced over her friends, making sure nobody looked hurt. "No!", Mo denied. "Just had to help some poor civilians who got themselves into trouble!"

"You didn't bring them here?" It was an unwritten rule that other survivors, if they didn't prove to pose a danger to the rest of the company, were invited to join them. "They didn't want to. I did offer them to come with us, but they said they had friends out there who they wanted to reunite with!" "Where did you find them? Could you see in which direction they headed?" Lyn turned her head to see Darim coming out of the undergrowth. Earlier that day he had gone with Sarah, one of the survivors they had picked up, to investigate the rest of the vicinity. Sarah, trailing behind him, looked terribly exhausted. Mo, already answering Darim's question, shot her a glance of concern. "Shit…" Darim frowned. "Spill it out, Darim, what's wrong?" "The direction they took is the one that leads straight to a place that is currently overrun by those who returned. We couldn't see much and had to bolt, otherwise we would have been in great danger too, but there were people in there. I don't think it would be a coincidence when those people were said friends your civilians wanted to meet. They are running into hell…"

* * *

They let them go. They truly let them go… After what had happened to him earlier, he still couldn't grasp it. Judging by their hoods, their odd garbs and armory he'd already bet on them meaning nothing but trouble. Appearing out of thin air, displaying Christian love? He hadn't been convinced to say the least. Nowadays Charity always came with a high price and Daryl had anticipated the worst. However, nothing of the things he imagined happening did happen in the end. They had stepped aside, accepted them refusing their offer and bid their farewell. "I wonder who they were… Did you notice that they all wore similar clothes? Did remind me of a movie I once watched about a secret organization whose members had a certain dress code!" Abraham didn't look at him or Sarah while he spoke. His eyes were fixed on his hands. "Wasn't only their clothes!", Daryl grumbled. "Each one of them had a fuckin' sword, but I didn' hear them drawin' them when they attacked those assholes! Don' think they made use of their guns either!" "Must have been one of the two. How else could they have killed them?", Sasha chimed in. "Dunno… but s' no sense in ponderin' on it anymore…"


End file.
